THE NEW YOR.KER. said. H ezbollahis, or "partisans of God," have formed the backbone of the revolution, but they do not, as in Leba- non, constitute a specific organization; "membership" is, more or less, a state of belief. "Their influence is dispro- portionate to their numbers," the envoy added. In late May, Mehdi Bazargan, who for nine months served as the Islamic Republic's first Prime Minister, until his resignation over the American- hostage crisis, issued an open letter of protest to Ayatollah Khomeini about Iran's war policy. In this case, "open" meant distributed in Iran and overseas but not published by the Iranian press. "Since 1986, you have not stopped proclaiming victory, and now you are calling on the population to resist until victory. Isn't that an admission of fail- ure on your behalf?" Bazargan wrote. "Y ou have spoken of the failure of Iraq and the crumbling of its regime, but thanks to your misguided policies, Iraq has fortified itself, its economy has not collapsed, and it is we who are on the verge of bankruptcy." He appealed, "You say that you have a responsibil- ity toward the spilled blood. I answer: When will you stop the commerce with the blood of our martyrs?" Bazargan had been considered a political gadfly since his resignation, but his bold, out- spoken letter indicated the depth of feeling about the war. This spring, Teheran's bush net- work reported that spontaneous anti- war demonstrations had erupted in Is- fahan and Tabriz-reports that the government vehemently denied but which Teheran-based diplomats be- lieved. More significant were reports that clerics were making pilgrimages to tell Khomeini, bluntly, that the war was sapping public morale. These events marked a reversal in Iranian thinking, for until this spring the war was always seen as more than a territorial dispute. On July 12th, six days before Iran agreed to uncondi- tionally accept Resolution 598, Tehe- ran Radio broadcast a communiqué from the armed forces' general com- mand. "This war is not about terri- tory," it said. "It is a continuous con- frontation between the righteous and the wicked which today has turned into a bloody conflict between two systems of values and countervalues. And what 37 is at stake here is the all-round defense of Islam and the Muslims" For the ruling mullahs, i t really was a jihad, or holy war, elevated to a cosmic plane of good versus evil. Even after 1982, when the tide of the war turned in Teheran's favor, they always perceived Iran as being on the defensive. Saddam Hussein's Iraq was socialist and secular and Sunni-ruled, despite its Shiite ma- jority, which was an obvious injustice. The Western naval deployment in the Gulf by the United States and five European nations-France, Britain, Italy, Holland, and Belgium-was also seen by the ruling mullahs as an attempt to create a barrier not around Iran but around Islam, like the outside world's attempt to block the path of the Prophet when he revealed the faith in the seventh century. A second motive in the war was Iran's ambitious sense of revolutionary mission on behalf not only of Iranians but also of other Muslims and of the mostazafin, or oppressed, of the entire Third World. Iran's Constitution, which was passed in a national referen- dum ten months after the revolution, states, "All Muslims shall be consid- j. "", , t -.d i"': > !II ........ .. .t'- r.: : f '. 'I. "' ",,' t " ...: "- .. ( ". ' " " I tI . . ,." II , t , \ \f!I"'".... . I " ", ... 1iON1. to ESORTS" ..... \\ ------ '" " '\ .. I ._ 1